Within their gates the stranger and the enemy waited for the
treacherous darkness of night, and waited unobserved. Where she had
first stood when the thick crowd hemmed her in, there she still
continued to stand after they slowly moved past her and space grew free.
Yet beneath this outward calm and silence lurked the wildest passions
that ever raged against the weak restraint of human will; even the firm
self-possession of Goisvintha was shaken when she found herself within
the walls of Rome.
No glance of suspicion had been cast upon her; not one of the crowd had
approached to thrust her back when she passed through the gates with the
heedless citizens around her. Shielded from detection, as much by the
careless security of her enemies as by the stratagem of her disguise,
she stood on the pavement of Rome, as she had vowed to stand, afar from
the armies of her people--alone as an avenger of blood!
It was no dream; no fleeting, deceitful vision. The knife was under her
hand; the streets stretched before her; the living beings who thronged
them were Romans; the hours of the day were already on the wane; the
approach of her vengeance was as sure as the approach of darkness that
was to let it loose.
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